Communication via cellular telephone networks by way of mobile, wireless communication devices presently includes a capacity, in many cellular networks, to transmit a short message. The Short Message Service (SMS) comprises a very short text message (a typical limitation is 160 characters) composed at a sender client and transmitted via wireless cellular communication to a Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) which operates upon received short messages to first store the short message, determine a recipient client, and forward the stored message. The operation of a message center relieves the wireless device of the sender client from the task of assuring the transmission operation to a recipient client is completed as required. The SMSC attempts to send messages to a recipient client. If a recipient client is not reachable, the SMSC queues the message for later retry. Some SMSC's also provide a “forward and forget” option where transmission is tried only once. Both Mobile Terminated (MT), for messages sent to a mobile handset, and Mobile Originating (MO), for those that are sent from the mobile handset, operations are supported. Message delivery is best effort, so there are no guarantees that a message will actually be delivered to its recipient and delay or complete loss of a message is not uncommon, particularly when sending between networks. Sender clients may obtain delivery reports for transmitted short messages. These reports provide positive confirmation that the short message reached the recipient client. SMS is a very effective form of communication for short messages where the recipient client cannot presently receive a wireless communication (out of radio range), is not able to take a call, etc. SMS does not use Internet connection for delivery of the text message, thereby eliminating a requirement for Internet connection by the sender client. SMS guarantees relative privacy as opposed to transmission of an identical email transmission via Internet communication. SMS is a very secure and private person-to-person communication in the realm of wireless communications.
Instant messaging via Internet (or equivalent network supporting packet transmissions) is well known as a standard by which single lines of text are transmitted between two or more communicating clients via support of an instant messaging server. The transmissions of lines of text is so fast that participants in an instant messaging communication session experience each other's transmissions as real time exchanges, providing for the sort of instant response a human will typically require for engaging in personal communications. A short period of waiting for the next text response from the sender actually enhances anticipation of the communications and significantly changes the subject matter and manner in which it is presented over duplex communications by telephone communications.
Instant messaging has been faulted in basic design for failing to provide security from interception and virus attack and many other shortcomings. Most of these shortcomings arise from the fact that the IM system was designed without business or government oversight or specification as just an unhindered way to quickly exchange brief thoughts in real time. The benefits of IM have greatly outweighed the disadvantages for communications between personal computers linked by wired connections or similarly reliable connections with the Internet. The actual transmission of a line of text is made as packetized data, greatly enhancing the speed and efficiency of transmission as compared with systems which transmit a line of text as stream of text signals. However, mobile communications devices currently experience serious limitations when enhanced to connect with the Internet via the cellular network, i.e., instant messaging is subject to sometimes slow data transfer rates and is also often subject to additional per-kilobyte charges by the cellular network for their handling of the Internet traffic.
Mobile, wireless communication devices, such as cellular telephones, have long been provided with microprocessors which comprise a memory capable of storing data about a specific person or business and associating with that person or business other information such as a phone number or address. These cellphone active phonebooks are ubiquitous in cellular telephones and are generally input by a user either through alphanumeric text input through a push button keypad or by direct data transfer from the user's own personal computer or from data stored at servers of the cellular system which may be transmitted for storage with appropriate authorization. In some cellular phones, notes, selection characteristics, or other data may be associated with a phone book entry. For example, a person's name may be associated with a data category of a relative and an emergency phone contact. The user wishing to display all relatives who are emergency phone contacts may use the cellular phone's menu and user interface to enter these criteria in a search of the phone book, whereafter the results are displayed on the liquid crystal display of the cellular phone are used in other ways.
Mobile devices capable of placing telephone calls provide phonebooks as one of number of menu selections that a user elects to display on a relatively limited display screen on that mobile device. Presently, the selections in a phonebook sub-menu that a user may make are relatively limited and tend to become static over time, as changes require manual user input by way of the touchpad buttons available in a typical mobile device such as a cellular phone or similar mobile telecommunications device.
In one specific application to cellular phones with SMS capability, a user may select an entry in the phone book and thereafter transmit a composed short message without having to enter the entire communication link information of the recipient.
There is a need for integration of the short message capabilities of wireless cellular communication devices enabled with phone book capabilities to improve communication opportunities of a user.